


Poire belle Hélène

by heartsfilthylesson



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, murder baby, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-10 00:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4369397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsfilthylesson/pseuds/heartsfilthylesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They watch their daughter run back to her friends, plaits undone and bows untied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poire belle Hélène

**Author's Note:**

> I got several requests for murder baby fic but this is mostly for me because I'm emotionally invested.

“What do you think?” Hannibal asks, his hand flat on the small of her back.

It’s at his insistence that they celebrate Helena’s fourth birthday with a Sunday garden party. Tables are set up by the hydrangeas and the climbing roses —towers of macarons and alfajores and miniature tartes flanked by vintage dolls and unlit candles — and waiters offer their guests sangria and tinto de verano and crisp whites and sweet rosés. It isn’t truly a gathering for children but there are pastel balloons and ribbons and nannies and au pairs to keep them occupied.

The afternoon is warm and bright and happy. Perhaps appeasing Hannibal’s social animal would not be quite as terrible as anticipated. “It’s lovely,” she concedes. He looks pleased. “The toys are a nice—”

“Mami!” Her daughter crashes into her, chubby hands reaching for the hem of her eggshell dress. There are bits of colourful confections on her little fingers and they stick to the expensive fabric. “Sorry, mama.”

“Helena,” she says, picking her up and settling on her hip.“You have to be a bit more careful.”

Her warning goes ignored. Helena giggles and reaches into the pockets of her flower printed dress. A crumbled alfajor, her mother’s favourite. “Para ti,” she says, in her sing-song little girl’s voice, her brown eyes wide and happy, and holds up the small sweet. “For you.”

“Gracias.” She bites the alfajor, nibbling her little fingers. Helena screeches with delight.

Hannibal laughs before twisting his mouth into a theatrical frown. “Nothing for your poor father?”

“Later,” she promises and tugs on the strap of Bedelia’s dress. “I go play, yes?”

"Now." He takes her forearm to his lips and sinks his teeth softly into her flesh. "Always sweet," he says and she laughs, admiring the crescent shaped marks on her skin. "Ma poire belle Hélène."

She hugs her once and kisses the top of her slightly damp blonde hair before letting her go. It won’t be long until she can’t carry her: Helena is small and slight for her age but she is growing faster now and fifty year old women aren’t built to care for preschool-aged children.

They watch their daughter run back to her friends, plaits undone and bows untied.

The passage of time is a strange thing. She remembers all too well leaving for Barcelona alone, pregnant and ailing and uncertain, and she remembers living with the constant threat of Interpol and the FBI and la Policía Judicial. It does not feel like four years.

“She will be taller than you soon,” Hannibal says playfully, reading her mind.

Bedelia laughs. “I know.”

\---

 As the last of the guests leave, Helena nods off in a settee. Bedelia is beyond grateful: it takes much storytelling (demi-gods and wood nymphs and prideful mortals) for her eager daughter to sleep. After she puts her to bed, she finds Hannibal in his office.

Bedelia leans against the doorframe for a long moment before he acknowledges her presence. His eyes are bright with unshed tears when he looks at her.

“She looks like her, Bedelia,” he whispers, a single tear rolling down his sculpted cheekbone.  She doesn’t need to ask who. Bedelia has memorised every detail of the only Lecter family picture that survived —her wavy blonde hair and her brown eyes and her bright smile. She knows but he tells her anyway. "She looks like Mischa.”

Something cold and terrible, a sliver of fear and dread, lodges in her stomach. She thinks of her sweet Helena, safe beneath her periwinkle duvet, smelling of lavender and sweat and candy, dreaming of princesses and mermaids, the dreams of children. Safe, safe, safe. H _ow did your sister taste?_

Bedelia shudders. “I know.”

 


End file.
